IMF "restructuring" or is it a "bailout"? Bailout for the banks, but a straight robbery from Irish pension funds, to the tune of E17.5Billion of the 80B. That might not seem like so much money to folks used to hearing about that much spent on Iraqistan every couple months, but Ireland is a tiny bit of dirt next to England with not many people on it. That's a freaking big bunch of dough just to buy some time against the collapse of fiat money!

Banks will redecorate and increase bonuses, while hiring new and more effective property repossessors and credit collectors. Regular folks who use banks or need banking will be eFf'ed.

That man definitely has his head screwed on straight. I watched several of the videos of him. The dude knows what he is talking about.

On a more sobering note; it looks like Europe might be heading for a revolution, too. Unfortunately, those poor bastards are pretty much disarmed. Damned hard to face shock troops with fully automatic weapons armed only with clubs, pitchforks and suchlike.

All wars are started by people who expect to win them. Hence the bloodier bits in Mike's novel "Absolved" and in John Ross's much older novel "Unintended Cosequences"

They are intended to point out to would be aggressors, that small, grass roots groups have, time and time again proved to be way more effective opponents than their small numbers and low level of equipment would ever suggest.

The US Federal Government has already waged total wars (plural) on selections of their citizens, both the Civil War and the various Indian Wars. These have included the use of germ warfare (smallpox) and policies of systematically killing women, children and elders in order to try to deny support to the fighting young men.

The central authority retained it's legitimacy with the larger section of the population (in some cases it barely managed too, see Robert H Churchill's "To shake their guns..." for description of Northern Dem dissent during the Civil War) because the conflict was geographically isolated from that majority.

Ross, has a fictional character giving a factual assessment of the likely size of the post 1968 Provisional Irish Republican Army - probably never more than 200 actively fighting, amongst a population of around 1.25 Million, in six little counties.

At least half of that population was fundamentally hostile to the IRA, the other half was various shades of indifferent, through to passive and active support. I guess roughly the 10% and 3% in the Catholic population.

Britain had about the fourth largest economy in the World, and was probably in the top 3 for the effectiveness of its armed and intelligence services.

Despite this, the IRA were still able to stage major set piece attacks in mainland cities, right through the period of the "troubles":

Car bomb assassination of Airy Neave MP,IN the underground car park of the Houses of Parliament.

At least half of that population was fundamentally hostile to the IRA, the other half was various shades of indifferent, through to passive and active support. I guess roughly the 10% and 3% in the Catholic population.

Britain had about the fourth largest economy in the World, and was probably in the top 3 for the effectiveness of its armed and intelligence services.

Despite this, the IRA were still able to stage major set piece attacks in mainland cities, right through the period of the "troubles":

Car bomb assassination of Airy Neave MP,IN the underground car park of the Houses of Parliament.

On their home ground, the IRA thugs were devastatingly effective. In South Armagh alone, they killed over 1,000 British security personnel for the loss of about 12 of their own.

The remains of one of the "disappeared", this one from 1979, have been formally identified today. These were people who were abducted and murdered for suspected collaboration, even tending the wounded or comforting the dying of the British security forces.

A former colleague who served a couple of postings with the British Army in the Northern Ireland (He was Catholic and of Irish ancestry) said that forces wives dreaded their men being posted to Northern Ireland. The economy was such a mess and the ambitious youngsters so desperate to get out, that attractive and intelligent young women were highly predatory towards squaddies - they were a ticket out of there.

The IRA thugs were never defeated. Sinn Fein, the semi detached political wing of the IRA is in coalition Government in the North, Gerry Adams is joint First Minister at the Stormont Assembly.

They were "fish" swimming in the "sea of the people". They couldn't just be nuked, Cities like Belfast or London-Derry couldn't be besieged and starved out - well, they could, but not without total loss of legitimacy by the British Government, and a massive transfer of allegeince of the Catholic population from indifference to active support - the sort of support you see for Hezbollah and Hamas in Gaza and the West Bank.

All of these groups started with very poor equipment and almost zero training, but through theft, ingenuity and outside support (French and Dutch help came to the American Colonists, think who would benefit from civil unrest in a particular country and you have the names of potential outside supporters for guerilla forces), they became effective adversaries, choosing their most advantageous times strike and totally disappearing when threatened, only to pop out of a different hole and bite ass.

Spreading these little bits of history will hopefully prevent a potential aggressor from thinking they can win easily - they can't, and even their leaders may well die during the struggle

Thanks for the update, folks. Now imagine what we can do over here with AR-15s (and variants/clones), AK-47/74s (and variants/clones), AR-10/FNAR/SXAR type .308s not to mention all the hunting rifles, shotguns and whatnot floating around. Add to the mix Serbia ROE (are you listening MSNBC/CNN/etc talking heads and statist politicians/demagogues?) and things could get very interesting.

I just hope things in Europe don't collapse totally and result in the rug-huggers taking over.

FnB, in one of the Farage vids he spoke of EU troops. Any notion how many the EU currently has under arms?

Does anyone know how to alter a Hawaii Birth Certificate?If we could fake a long form one, it would even be better than Barry the Brit has done. If Barry's passed muster, I'm sure we could get this guy on the ballot in at least some states. Think of the stink that would cause, I bet it would stink all the way to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.

"Progress made under the shadow of the policeman's club is false progress."

I believe that liberty is the only genuinely valuable thing that men have invented, at least in the field of government, in a thousand years. I believe that it is better to be free than to be not free, even when the former is dangerous and the latter safe. I believe that the finest qualities of man can flourish only in free air – that progress made under the shadow of the policeman's club is false progress, and of no permanent value. I believe that any man who takes the liberty of another into his keeping is bound to become a tyrant, and that any man who yields up his liberty, in however slight the measure, is bound to become a slave. -- H.L. Mencken

On the efficacy of passive resistance in the face of the collectivist beast. . .

Had the Japanese got as far as India, Gandhi's theories of "passive resistance" would have floated down the Ganges River with his bayoneted, beheaded carcass. -- Mike Vanderboegh.

In the future . . .

When the histories are written, “National Rifle Association” will be cross-referenced with “Judenrat.” -- Mike Vanderboegh to Sebastian at "Snowflakes in Hell"

"Smash the bloody mirror."

If you find yourself through the looking glass, where the verities of the world you knew and loved no longer apply, there is only one thing to do. Knock the Red Queen on her ass, turn around, and smash the bloody mirror. -- Mike Vanderboegh

From Kurt Hoffman over at Armed and Safe.

"I believe that being despised by the despicable is as good as being admired by the admirable."

From long experience myself, I can only say, "You betcha."

"Only cowards dare cringe."

The fears of man are many. He fears the shadow of death and the closed doors of the future. He is afraid for his friends and for his sons and of the specter of tomorrow. All his life's journey he walks in the lonely corridors of his controlled fears, if he is a man. For only fools will strut, and only cowards dare cringe. -- James Warner Bellah, "Spanish Man's Grave" in Reveille, Curtis Publishing, 1947.

"We fight an enemy that never sleeps."

"As our enemies work bit by bit to deconstruct, we must work bit by bit to REconstruct. Be mindful where we should be. Set goals. We fight an enemy that never sleeps. We must learn to sleep less." -- Mike H. at What McAuliffe Said

"The Fate of Unborn Millions. . ."

"The time is now near at hand which must probably determine, whether Americans are to be, Freemen, or Slaves; whether they are to have any property they can call their own; whether their Houses, and Farms, are to be pillaged and destroyed, and they consigned to a State of Wretchedness from which no human efforts will probably deliver them. The fate of unborn Millions will now depend, under God, on the Courage and Conduct of this army-Our cruel and unrelenting Enemy leaves us no choice but a brave resistance, or the most abject submission; that is all we can expect-We have therefore to resolve to conquer or die." -- George Washington to his troops before the Battle of Long Island.

"We will not go gently . . ."

This is no small thing, to restore a republic after it has fallen into corruption. I have studied history for years and I cannot recall it ever happening. It may be that our task is impossible. Yet, if we do not try then how will we know it can't be done? And if we do not try, it most certainly won't be done. The Founders' Republic, and the larger war for western civilization, will be lost.

But I tell you this: We will not go gently into that bloody collectivist good night. Indeed, we will make with our defiance such a sound as ALL history from that day forward will be forced to note, even if they despise us in the writing of it.

And when we are gone, the scattered, free survivors hiding in the ruins of our once-great republic will sing of our deeds in forbidden songs, tending the flickering flame of individual liberty until it bursts forth again, as it must, generations later. We will live forever, like the Spartans at Thermopylae, in sacred memory.

-- Mike Vanderboegh, The Lessons of Mumbai:Death Cults, the "Socialism of Imbeciles" and Refusing to Submit, 1 December 2008

"A common language of resistance . . ."

"Colonial rebellions throughout the modern world have been acts of shared political imagination. Unless unhappy people develop the capacity to trust other unhappy people, protest remains a local affair easily silenced by traditional authority. Usually, however, a moment arrives when large numbers of men and women realize for the first time that they enjoy the support of strangers, ordinary people much like themselves who happen to live in distant places and whom under normal circumstances they would never meet. It is an intoxicating discovery. A common language of resistance suddenly opens to those who are most vulnerable to painful retribution the possibility of creating a new community. As the conviction of solidarity grows, parochial issues and aspirations merge imperceptibly with a compelling national agenda which only a short time before may have been the dream of only a few. For many Americans colonists this moment occurred late in the spring of 1774." -- T.H. Breen, The Marketplace of Revolution: How Consumer Politics Shaped American Independence, Oxford University Press, 2004, p.1.